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981  Other / Off-topic / Re: BFL Preorders -- What did you get? | Who has the lowest order number? on: June 29, 2012, 08:18:23 PM
Will be interesting how much the difficulty spikes when these all come online.

I think this needs more insight from BFL. And I have an open question about that to the forum BFL Engineer. BFL-Eng will try to get some more details. The reason it is importnat is kinda obvious, if they keep these prices, the ROI's will eventually take too long. So, I personally would not order any more equipment until I get that insight. Order numbers start around #1600 and I know they went over #2300 about mid week. Assume 800 orders, and average of 200GH per order on average (yeah that is random...but also the point is that we don't know where the hash rate is going). Anyway, that is 200GH/order x 700 orders = 140Thash to be added to the network hash rate just from initial to midweek orders. So, that could easily go to 300TH. Current difficulty is based on 12.5TH. So, difficulty will fly when network hash rate hits 312TH. So, go figure how long it will take you to pay off any BFL equipment if that is the case 1.5years? 2 years? Will the equipment even be warrantied for that long? So, it might be better to just buy bitcoins with current BFL hardware pricing. Orders in the first week or two are probably safe, but Im skeptical. Anyway, let's see what the engineer has to provide if/when he ever gets some details.

||bit
982  Other / Off-topic / Re: BFL Engineer: Multiple SC Singles Configuration on: June 29, 2012, 12:05:39 PM
very conservative numbers to consider worse case scenarios

wat

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=90366.0
983  Other / Off-topic / Re: BFL Engineer: Multiple SC Singles Configuration on: June 29, 2012, 11:58:38 AM

I can't go fully into details as we speak, but as we have stated before, it will be in favor of the miners.
I will try to see if I can answer this question in detail today.


Regards,
BF Labs Inc.


Thanks BFL Engineer, 'in favor of the miners' sounds promising. I look forward to any new details you find & provide later.

||bit
984  Other / Off-topic / Re: BFL Engineer: Multiple SC Singles Configuration on: June 29, 2012, 09:50:59 AM
Regards,
BF Labs Inc.

BFL Engineer,

This is a little off the topic I started above, but it is important for potential customers & for customers that may want to make further purchases in the near term. Can BFL provide some kind of rough projections on the impact it's hardware will have on the bitcoin mining difficulty levels in the first few months from initial sc-hardware shipments? This seems pretty important if one is to invest in sc hardware, as a reasonable ROI would be a big factor. Perhaps, you guys can provide some insight on what will happen, based on what you know of products on order.

I started one thread trying to assertain this from what little data we have avaialble, but we don't know the exact numbers of hardware or hashing power that are going to hit the network starting in October. Also, what rate it will increase on the network. For example, one projection derived from our scant data was assuming the current network hash rate of 12.5THash/s, that after one month BFL products will incline the network from 12.5TH to  124TH/s or as high as 300TH/s after the first month of shipment go online. That would jack the difficulty up a factor of 10x to 25x. This value has been criticised as unlikely, but I have used some very conservative numbers to consider worse case scenarios. Who know's it might be worse than that. If it is that high [especially before the first month of shipments are out], then I personally would rather hold off on ordering any extra hardware until I see a reasonable & predicatable ROI.

Would you expand on that?

||bit
985  Other / Off-topic / Re: BFL Engineer: Multiple SC Singles Configuration on: June 29, 2012, 09:26:59 AM
BFL Engineer et.al.
How will multiple SC Singles connect to a single computer? Do they each require a unique USB port, or is there a way to chain some (or all) of them together to use one USB port? The SC mini-rig will apparently plugs into one port, and I'm assuming the submodules in it are essentially SC Singles (or Jalapenos). So, a daisy-chaining feature seems like it might be doble if not available.

||bit




A USB port will be needed (in the first versions). We're looking into different methods of daisy-chaining (both wired and wireless).
However, it is not yet fully determined whether daisy-chain will exist and if so, how it will work.


Regards,
BF Labs Inc.

In the first version, would a USB hub that has several USB ports work to support several sc-singles?  It isn't exactly the same as plugging into a dedicated USB port on a computer, since it is connecting many USB ports to one USB port on a computer.

||bit
986  Other / Off-topic / BFL Engineer: Multiple SC Singles Configuration on: June 29, 2012, 03:42:51 AM
BFL Engineer et.al.
How will multiple SC Singles connect to a single computer? Do they each require a unique USB port, or is there a way to chain some (or all) of them together to use one USB port? The SC mini-rig will apparently plugs into one port, and I'm assuming the submodules in it are essentially SC Singles (or Jalapenos). So, a daisy-chaining feature seems like it might be doble if not available.

||bit

987  Bitcoin / Hardware / Re: [ANN] OpenBitASIC : The Open Source Bitcoin ASIC Initiative on: June 28, 2012, 06:29:16 PM
I wonder what BFL heading for per chip vs this project. Jalapeno is 3,5Gh and single SC 40GH/s that could be 2x20Gh chips in the same power range, around 40w if 3,5Gh draws 3.5-4.5 w from usbport. But that also imply disabled areas (or lower quality chips) or downclocked to a 1/5th. The other alternative would be a 4Gh chip and in the single 10x of that.
Nah, dont seems reasonable, should be a lot more expensive I guess.

I don't know that it matters a great deal. The hashing costs and required energy are low for both. The advantage of the open project might be that they either make things competitive and  this drives price down, or that they are more alturistic to the community and reduce the cost to very low to those that want to buiold their own boards...and sell them bulk chips.

Once initial costs haver been paid for, how much do you think it costs to make a chip in a Jalapeno, for example, to generate the 3.5GH? Let's say they are using just one chip. Is it $5? The open asic project/initiative as way to really drive down these costs substantially.

All in all...it won't really matter too much after another year. Like they said, asic is the endgame technology, or at least for as far as we can see. And considering that everyone has a certain amount they are willing to invest in hardware for mining... I thnk that last point is the real endgame factor on how profitable things will be for individual mining. Btc will be divided proportionally. Now is only a time to try to get a boost ahead of the curve by simply making enough to re-invest into hardware later.

||bit
988  Bitcoin / Mining / Re: [Conspiracy theory] Have blocks of bitcoin a second purpose? on: June 28, 2012, 06:14:10 PM
I believe there is no limit as a full fat client has every transaction back to the genesis block. This is why the blockchain is around 2GB and rising and also why there is talk of compressing it or pruning it. Smiley

hmmm... makes bitcoin seem cumbersome or prone to becoming more cumbersome.
989  Bitcoin / Mining / Re: [Conspiracy theory] Have blocks of bitcoin a second purpose? on: June 28, 2012, 04:55:19 AM
This is exactly what my dad thinks bitcoin mining is.

"Well, someone has to be using your processing power for something immoral, like to hack bank info.  That's where the money must come from."

I've tried to explain too many times.  Roll Eyes
As a currency, it is given value by the people that trade it. More often than not, those that trade it do so because of its properties that are otherwise impossible to replicate in a centralized setting. Some are in it only for the money, but it is those that use it as a store of value that really enable the moneymakers to do what they do.

Mining should really be less in the forefront of the scene than it is currently. As evoorhees has said in the past, how many people mine for gold, silver, etc? And how many of those that use such metals as a currency know the complex techniques used to do so, just so they can get some more? The ones that make all the money aren't usually the miners, they are the ones that trade the stuff in the commodities markets, or use it to manufacture products.

Do you now if there is a limit to the database size that is downloaded to each wallet client? My understanding has been that every bitcoin transaction is stored in these database that eveyrone has...i.e. distributed evenly. Is this accurate? Ifso, how far back does it go in stroing each transaction? The database will become too enormous if there is no limit.
990  Bitcoin / Mining speculation / Re: BFL ASIC & Difficulty Profile on: June 28, 2012, 03:50:19 AM
Well, we know Bitpay brought in $250k the first day. Given the paranoia about being first in line it's likely that most people probably got in ASAP, but let's say there was another $250k in bank wires, and the rest of the preorders after the first day are worth another $500k. That's a cool million dollars.

Given BFL's current price per TH/s (~$32,000), that million dollars would buy 32TH/s.

If you're estimating 200TH/s, BFL will either need to slash prices, or pull in $6m.

The numbers I've been using are generous assumptions towards the worse cases. Example, assuming they could indefinitely ship 50 Singles/day and 3 Rigs every day..indefinitely... quite generous for worse case I think.

Another approach was looking at how many FPGA Singles were probably sold already. I think knowing how many FPGA Singles were sold would be indicative of the core person interested in buying anything from BFL. From the difficulty change from March 2012 around when I'm guessing BFL was getting shipments out there finally, to today, we have only about 2.5TH increase in difficulty. Assume people that were putting their new FPGA Singles online took their GPU's oiffline to accomodate their FPGA's (why they would do that? ...I don't know...but the BFL person ont he forums told me that is what they heard was happening from customers)..and you get 5TH from FPGA Singles. Which comes out to about 3000 to 6000 Singles sold and now mining online. Seems very high, but that is what making a generous estiamtion does. So, that's a worse case for how many FPGA Singles will be traded in. That would require somethign like 3.x million dollars to be sent to BFL for tradeins. The numbers seen going through bit-pay, as I have heard, don't resonate well with that number, imo. Unless people are lagging or particularily need to use bank wire.

One speculative reason to doubt those numbers is because BFL is only up to urder number 2300 or so now. And I think they started around #1600 when pre-orders started for SC hardware. And if that 1600 are sequerntial order numbers since inception of order taking process, then that would mean 1600 orders accounts for 3000 to 6000 Singles shipped? I don't know..maybe... any thoughts on add or about that?

||bit
991  Bitcoin / Mining speculation / Re: BFL ASIC & Difficulty Profile on: June 28, 2012, 01:44:50 AM
You leave out the th/s boxes again one a day is seven th/s a week added, two a day fourteen th/s a week, three a day twenty-one th/s a week added and so on.... The first to get these things should be able to pay them off and make profit, third or fourth week receivers of them good luck, second and third month not a hope in hell of seeing your money back.

I used the observable changes in past difficulty level, not BFL's current shipping capacity to determine the numbers.

Using just the shipping capacity alone, it wouldn't be bad for the sc-rigs coming online at the fourth week. Take the worse case of 3 x 1TH rigs/day. That is 18 or 21 TH/week (I doubt they run 7 day weeks though). Round it to 20TH/week to approximate a worse case. After four weeks, that is 80TH more online. With that increase, a new rig just coming online would still pay for itself in about 4 months because the difficulty would only increase by a factor between 6x and 7x. BUT, of course, I think you'd want to put it in the context of ALL the other orders that would eventually increase network hash rate. So, how large are those orders? Not sure.... So, let's just make it easy and use current shipping capacity as we have been told hey are filling now. They are shipping 50 Singles per day and 1.5rigs per day. Assume the same rate for new SC Singles, and let's increase the rigs to 2.5/day for a more worse case in the below scenario. And assume it will somehow sustain that rate indefinitely.

Assume 50 Singles/day and 2.5Rigs/day from the start of shipments. Exclude any built up supply for now.

50 Singes = 50 x 40GH = 2TH/day shipped.
2 Rigs = 2 x 1TH = 2TH/day shipped.
Total: 4TH/day or 28TH/week or 112TH/month

After four weeks that is 112TH + 12.5TH = 124.5TH. Two months would be 124.5TH + 112TH or 236.5TH on the network. Carrying it out like this out... assuming they somehow kept such consistent orders... Some math I did suggest you'd still pay off the rig (unlike Zeno's paradox but not that fast). The calculation yielded about 14 months to break even.  Undecided  And again, not counting the btc discoveries going from 50 to 25...so, maybe [much] longer if the btc value doesn't compensate for that factor.

||bit




992  Bitcoin / Mining speculation / Re: BFL ASIC & Difficulty Profile on: June 28, 2012, 12:20:52 AM
Any critiques or thoughts? Or it may be as simple as using the current production and shipping numbers and assume that only SC Singles are shipped, with a initial surge of one or two months product production coming online within the first couple weeks initial shipments are sent out.

||bit

BFL said that were going to ship all three products at once so count on some of them th/s boxes going out the door ever week if they ship any amount of them a day then the diff is going to ramp up real quick.

That's true. However, if we just use the dollars we think are interested in SC hardware, we can probably make an fair estimation regardless of what specific models they ship. The hashing power per dollar is close enough between the tiny 3.5GH Jalapeno and the 1TH SC mini-rig. So, to kinda average it out, I tend to just focus on the middle valued product (SC Singles).

Jalapeno:  ~$43/GH
SC-Single: ~$32/GH
SC-Rig:     ~$30/GH

||bit
993  Bitcoin / Mining speculation / Re: BFL ASIC & Difficulty Profile on: June 28, 2012, 12:04:29 AM
I estimate that once all BFL FPGAs are exchanged for BFL ASICs, the processing power will be atleast 300TH. Also reward halving will make it 600TH by today's standard.

At this point the 40GH $1299 unit does not look so cheap anymore, as it will take around a year to pay itself off.

Ofcourse if the price per Bitcoin rises then it will make things easier.

Can you give your objective basis or reasoning for your estimation?

Consider the difficulty level now and over the time that BFL has been shipping FPGA Singles. It has only increased ~2.5TH since about March 2012. Assuming worse case that is all increase due to Singles, and generously that each Single replaced a GPU that went offline, that would be maximum about ~5TH increase of partial hashing power due to the FPGA Singles.

Each FPGA Single is 830MH/s. Each new SC Single is 40GH/s.  That is a factor of approx. 48x increase in hash rate. Scale up the presumed 5TH of partial hash power of FPGA Singles by 48x and you have 240TH worse case scenario. So, 120TH to 240TH increase from all tradeins (assuming all are traded in for SC Singles). Count new straight orders..hmm you might be right. :/

Currently 12.5TH increase by 120TH or 240TH:
120TH + 12.5TH = 132.5 TH.  Difficulty increase 132.5TH/12.5TH = 10.6x
240TH + 12.5TH = 252.5 TH.  Difficulty increase 252.5TH/12.5TH = 20.2x

So, we are talking a x11 to x20 increase in difficulty in possibly the first month or two of shipments. More than I thought.

Even so, Each type of SC hardware is about the same price to hash rate, so it doesn't matter much on what you buy. And at 20x difficulty breakeven may reasonably be expected around 4 to 5 months of continuous mining. And probably much faster for those that recieve shipments first. Don't get me wrong, 4-5 months is a good ROI. But I didn't count the BTC blocks from 50 to 25. If the BTC value goes up as a result then no problem. If not, your talking upwards of about 9 months ROI (still not bad). And finally, if new orders (i.e. non-upgraded tradein orders) are the quantities as trade-in/upgrade orders. Then we move to an approximate 20x to 40x increase in difficulty. ROI would then be either about 9 months or 18 months.

||bit




994  Bitcoin / Mining speculation / BFL ASIC & Difficulty Profile on: June 27, 2012, 08:56:41 PM
For those interested, I'd like to collectively see if we can determine some reasonable profile on how BFL asic may come online and how it alone may affect the difficulty from the initial shipments through subsequent months. I'll list some data and assumptions that may be helpful. Feel free to critique them and provide any other ideas or  observations that you think might be helpful.

As I understand it, difficulty is directly proportional to network hash rate (hereafter:NHR or nhr). So, if the nhr increases 120% then difficulty increases 120%.
Current nhr is ~12.5 THash as found here: http://bitcoin.sipa.be/

Regarding recent pre-orders:
Does anyone have an idea on what the first order number was in the recent pre-orders or some order number that is probably close to it? I've read some numbers around #1600. However a recent order number I saw was around #2300. I have a hypothesis that the number 1600 is just picking up from where the fpga Singles & fpga Mini-Rigs have been ordered. If we could get an average order size, then we could figure out how many Singles have been sold. And then reason that this is how many SC Singles will be ordered by tradeins alone.

One observer in a thread in the forums pointed out how the Bit-Pay (the initial pre-order method of payment) spiked in the first 24 hours. If I am not mistaken, that spike was about 50k-ish bitcoins. Using that value over a projected ten days, I did some rough math then and it came out about 8TH of BFL Sc hardware if there would be ten such days of products beign ordered(assuming the SC Single as the average H/$ value - i.e. 40GHash/$1299.

Other stuff:
* BFL has been late in shipping products. Shipping products on average about 8 weeks (can anyone verify this?)
* BFL has about three months to get some initial inventory built and ready to ship in October.
* BFL claims to have shipped 50 units per day. However, looking at past difficulty changes over the montsh does not indicate this. One BFL rep on the forum said this was b/c people were simply in large replaceing GPU's with their Singles. However, this does not make since for a miner to do, since GPU's are still arguably the fastest mining hardware. It seems more likely that this is a current shipping rate as also indicated by one BFL comment. So, we can assume a current shipping rate of 50/day (Any other thoughts on this?)
* BFL is ramping up staff (witnessed by Inaba). Also, BFL has in emaisl and the forum indicated that they were ramping up shipping. So, this may more solidify, if not improve, the above 50/units per day.

Any critiques or thoughts? Or it may be as simple as using the current production and shipping numbers and assume that only SC Singles are shipped, with a initial surge of one or two months product production coming online within the first couple weeks initial shipments are sent out.

||bit
995  Other / Off-topic / Re: Wondering where your BFL Singles are? on: June 27, 2012, 07:35:33 PM
Where is this?

I guess the dustpan indicates that you are in their clean room?

LOL. Yeah, found after the gowning room and high pressured air shower.

Good to see some photos of inside though. So, what we see in the photo is about one days shipments. Since they say, as of recent, that 50 are sent each day, then anyone waiting for Singles now doesn't actually know that those are photos of his/her Singles. Tongue

Thanks for being the forum's inside agent. Then again... how do we know YOU are not actually Sonny? da da dunnnn  Wink
Now, a photo of the mysterious elusive Sonny (BTW: great name for a Don of a "family busineess") would be awesome.

Thanks again for posting the indie view.

||bit

996  Other / Off-topic / Re: BitFORCE SC - Bankwire Instructions Delay Policy on: June 27, 2012, 12:31:36 AM
We have an announcement to make regarding all our customers who chose bank-wire as payment method for our SC series. Based on our policy, the order date is locked in when the actual funds arrive in our bank account. In this process, however, we will not count the days it took us to send wire info to the customer. In other words, if you have ordered on 15th of the month, and received wire instruction on 21st and finally the money arrives in our account on 23rd, your official order date will be 17th (15th + 2 days delay between receiving the wire info from us and funds arrival).

Clients who still have not received wire info should not be concerned, as we only count the delay it took them to wire the funds from the day wire instruction was sent to them.

Please let us know if you have any questions in this regard.


Regards,
BF Labs Inc.

Why promote bit-pay over bankwire anyway? What if McDonalds put customers with visa cards ahead of those with dollars in their pocket? I'm not sure how this promotion of another company's service is value added to BFL or the customer. What am I missing?
997  Bitcoin / Mining speculation / Re: BFL's graveyard on: June 26, 2012, 06:13:47 PM
What will happen with the trade in program?  What will they use their minirigs and singles for?

The asic pricing will make them worthless.

The ASIC hardware will have a preset date/time [a countdown] that will trigger all ASIC's to execute a self destruct or cease mining function. ASIC's will all be useless at the same time. BFL will then offer another 50% trade-in program with the timed-out ASIC hardware back to the [renewed] prior-gen FPGA hardware. Then the FPGA once named 'Singles' will be called Double, and the miniRig will earn the new title 'Phoenix' after the mythical bird that arises back from the ashes.

||bit
998  Other / Beginners & Help / Re: need to cash-out? get cash or free express wire transfer for Bitcoins same day on: June 26, 2012, 05:48:50 PM
Sounds like an arbitrage trader. Anyway, it's an interesting proposition.
999  Other / Off-topic / Re: I'd be treated with more respect if I paid 18K at a car dealership. on: June 26, 2012, 06:28:38 AM
They have allocated 1/3 of the quota to upgrades like us, so we will fall under that category.
To people who have orders in for the prior-gens?  Hmmmm.... I suppose that could work out alright.

Unless virgin orders equate to significantly fewer units than than that carried by persons with prior-gen stuff.  Undecided
1000  Bitcoin / Mining speculation / Re: earnings from bfl sc mini rig on: June 26, 2012, 12:58:33 AM
Current calculators aren't taking into account the huge rise in difficulty after the dust settles.

I would guess the same as before with their FPGA's.  The current mini-rig that is shipping is about $2,000 per month maybe?  Once the rewards half I guess it'll be $1,000 a month until bitcoin increases in value.

I was talking about the earnings on the ASIC hardware, at 1,000gh/s, even just at current difficulty. What would it earn if I had one right now?

Probably more than $100,000/month. Enough to pay off the rig in less than two weeks. And I suspect if you just ordered ASIC hardware now, you will still be able to pay off the equipment faster than you could pay off a GPU today, perhaps even within 2 or 3 months. I suspect there are enough skpetics not ordering, factors of a tight economy limiting risk takers from buying, etc...
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